While many from the Bollywood fraternity have spoken against the MNS decision to ban all Pakistani actors working in Indian films, director Abhishek Jawkar, who debuted in the industry with a thriller film called Missing On A Weekend, says he was planning to cast Pakistani actress Mawra Hocane for his film Not a Prostitute but now he has dropped the plan. “I will not work with any Pakistani actors in my upcoming film Not a Prostitute or in my future projects also. I was planning to cast Pakistani actress Mawra Hocane as the leading lady of my film Not a Prostitute. But now after the Uri attack and India’s surgical attack reply, I strongly feel I should support my country and the soldiers fighting for our nation,” Jawkar said.

The director, though denied about Mawra being a part of his project, said the name of the leading lady will be announced soon. “Casting a lead lady may take a week more and we’re planning to go on floors in November,” he said. Mawra last acted in the film Sanam Teri Kasam and was famous for the song Tu Kheench Meri Photo. Director/Producer Jawkar next is based on the escort industry. Not a Prostitute to be made under the banner of Red Bulb studios, has also been written by him and is scheduled to release in November 2017.

With the MNS decision coming true slowly and steadily, a lot of filmmakers are completely at a soup with their upcoming films starring the targetted Pakistani actors remaining incomplete. While some like Karan Johar and Mahesh Bhatt have vociferously shared their opinion, other celebs like Kangana Ranaut and Ranbir Kapoor chose to remain neutral. And then we had Salman Khan who supported these actors, stating that “they are artistes, not terrorists”.

Though one of the targetted actors, Fawad Khan, remained silent on the whole issue, the Raees actress Mahira Khan has subtly showed her take on the issue by tweeting a fan’s hand written letter. She took to her Twitter handle and shared a post, which turns out to be something written by a Pakistani girl named Alizay Jaffer. The post soon went viral. Alizay got a lot of praise from netizens from both India and Pakistan.